A first-up win at Flemington provided the first sign that Zamorar’s recent throat operation was successful.

Trainer David Bourne is now looking for the gelding to underline the victory with another solid performance at Moonee Valley on Saturday.

Zamorar, a multiple stakes placegetter as a three-year-old and early four-year-old, registered his first win in over two years with a last-stride victory two weeks ago.

The rising six-year-old was having his first start since he underwent throat surgery and Bourne was happy to see him return a winner.

“Watching him win the other day at least gave us the confidence that he is still in the game,” Bourne said.

Zamorar takes on seven rivals in Saturday’s United Refrigeration Handicap (1000m), a race which includes the Robbie Laing-trained Lord Of The Sky.

Lord Of The Sky is due to back up after finishing fourth as an odds-on favourite in last Saturday’s Group Three Bletchingly Stakes.

He has drawn barrier one with apprentice Kayla Nisbet to claim 3kg off the horse’s 60kg impost.

Zamorar has 58kg but Katelyn Mallyon, who won her second Melbourne apprentices’ title this season, will claim 1.5kg.

“From my experience with throat operations, they either work or they don’t. And I would say his has worked,” Bourne said.

“As he gets the racing into him, we’ll hopefully stop talking about all that and start talking about him. He’s obviously a talented horse.”

Bourne said it was important for Zamorar to start building some consistency given his previous issues.

“There’s a couple of reasonable horses in the race on Saturday so I would have thought if he runs top four and puts in another good effort, it will go a long way to showing that he might be developing that consistency,” he said.

Zamorar won his only two starts at Moonee Valley as a three-year-old.

He is second pick in early betting at $4.50 with Lord Of The Sky installed the $1.70 TAB fixed odds favourite.

Saturday’s meeting is the first metropolitan fixture of the new racing season in Melbourne.